Angela Morales, a 1997 graduate of the University of Iowa's top-rankedNonfiction Writing Program, has been named the winner of the 2014 Nonfiction Book Prize from River Teeth Journal, judged by best-selling nonfiction writer Cheryl Strayed.

"These essays are wonderfully universal, for all of their intimacy. I never wanted to stop reading," Strayed commented.

Chosen from more than 270 entries, Morales’ winning book, The Girls in My Town, will be published by The University of New Mexico Press in 2016. Her essays have recently appeared in Best American Essays 2013, The Southern Review, The Los Angeles Review, and The Harvard Review.

Morales is an English teacher at Glendale Community College and lives in Pasadena, California.

The Nonfiction Writing Program is offered through the Department of English in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Iowa is a comprehensive college comprising the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. More than 16,000 undergraduate and 2,000 graduate students study each year in the College’s 39 departments, led by professors at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The College teaches all UI undergraduates through the General Education Program, and confers about 70 percent of the UI's bachelor's degrees each academic year.

NOTICE: The State University of Iowa Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization soliciting tax-deductible private contributions for the benefit of The University of Iowa. Please review its full disclosure statement http://www.uifoundation.org/about/disclosures/.